Hey everybody! I now proudly present the latest chapter! As of this chapter, the Titans finally have their first proper encounter with the Umbrosians. Sound exciting? I certainly hope so! Please read, review, and enjoy!

A/N: But first, to avoid getting sued, I do not own Teen Titans or anything else DC based. I only own the Umbrosians. That being said, onward with the fic ya'll!

Chapter 4:

The Ambush

"Titans, get ready. We've got some fighting to do." Robin turned his head to face Starfire's compartment. "You ready Star?"

Starfire nodded her head, a fierce look of determination on her face. "Yes Robin. I am."

"Good," said Robin. "Titans go!"

The titans gunned the thrusters, zooming towards the scene of the attacking Umbrosians. Once they'd reached convenient range, they deployed the ship's blasters and opened fire.

The Umbrosians halted their assault in surprise at the sudden blaster fire against them. As one, all the outside fighters narrowed their glowing red eyes, and then lifted their hands in the titans' direction.

At the sight of the crackling glow that surrounded the raised Umbrosian hands, Robin instantly knew what was about to happen. "Everyone, activate your shields!" He and the other titans did so, and the resulting jets of shadow fire were reflected away and prevented from causing too much damage to the T-ship. It didn't completely prevent the ship from getting damaged though.

Robin snarled at the sight of some small cracks that appeared on the nose of his compartment. "This definitely better not keep getting worse," he thought to himself.

"Shield power, 95%," said the electronic voice of the ship's computers.

"Titans," said Robin. "Keep firing."

The titans fired more and more blaster fire at the Umbrosians. Within seconds, several of the Umbrosians hissed in apparent agony as they faded away under the relentless blaster assault.

Then one of the Umbrosians pointed its hand towards the T-ship while hissing out an order to its fellow soldiers in the Umbrosian language. In a flash, a large contingent of the outside fighters detached themselves from the Tamaranean ship and zoomed towards the T-ship, as did fifteen of the ships.

"Titans! Separate!"

At the sound of this command, the titans caused the T-ship to split into its five component compartments.

"Alright. Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, you handle the ones that just detached to come after us. Beast Boy, you and I will focus on the ones still attacking Galfore's ship." Without a word between them, the five teenage heroes piloted their compartments in the respective directions assigned. Eight squadrons of outside fighters, plus six of the Umbrosian ships, promptly altered course and headed over to intercept them.

The rest of the group, however, placed all their attention on the three compartments containing Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven. The three titans in question, thankfully, were more than ready.

"Let's light 'em up ya'll," said Cyborg. He levitated his compartment upwards, and then forwards toward the force heading towards him. Starfire and Raven, meanwhile, flew their compartments to the left and the right, prompting three ships and four squadrons each to go after them, leaving a final group with the exact same numbers for Cyborg to deal with.

As Cyborg watched in his headlong glide towards his chosen assailants, the 'eyes' of the 3 ships before him started to glow, and the outside fighters raised their hands to reveal crackling orbs of darkness charging up for attack. Cyborg charged up his compartment's blasters and opened fire.

The entirety of one of the squadrons promptly faded away to nothing under the onslaught of blaster fire. Only one of the luckless squadron's members was able to successfully throw a fully charged attack at Cyborg before meeting its demise. Cyborg dodged the attack with ease, but before he could return fire, the rest had vanished, not wanting to end up space ash like their comrades.

The three ships, on the other hand, began to open fire with a salvo of their own brilliant red laser blasts. He dodged the salvo by diving downwards and then zooming up towards the ships from beneath their undersides, firing at the ship in the center for good measure. The ship received a direct hit to its 'underbelly', a small stream of sparks and smoke starting to emanate from where the blasts struck.

Two of the outside fighter squadrons swooped down towards Cyborg's compartment, one of them actively charging orbs of darkness in their hands and the other diving headfirst at Cyborg. Cyborg immediately concentrated on blasting the Umbrosians that were charging up. Once satisfied that all the members of that squadron had faded to nothing under his blaster assault, he switched his focus to the other, only for his human eye to widen in shock at the sight of just how fiendishly close to crashing into his compartment the squadron was.

He hurriedly mashed the shield trigger with his right fist. The forcefield that was conjured as a result was so strong that the entirety of the squadron attempting to dive bomb him plowed painfully against it, crackled with blue electricity, and then faded away within seconds. Panting in shock and relief, he reverted the shields, only to mentally curse as he saw that the last-ditch effort to save himself from the divebombing had cut his compartment's shield power down from 95 to 85%, far more than he would have preferred. "Keep it together," he told himself to avoid losing his cool over his brief carelessness. "You just need to be more careful."

Starfire, meanwhile, was firing left and right at the Umbrosians she was facing with her compartment's blasters. One by one, the members of three of the outside fighter squadrons faded to nothing. The last squadron, however, was now proving to be rather evasive.

She focused intently on the remaining squadron assaulting her, her green eyes narrowed, and brow furrowed as she worked determinedly to score a direct hit. Then, much to her pleasure, the evasive Umbrosians positioned themselves in a circle around her compartment, hands at the ready and charging up. With a smile on her face, she switched her blasters to 'continuous beam' mode. "Raava de zuuso," Starfire whispered to herself.

In English, "Beware the light."

With a flash and bang, continuous laser beams spouted from her blasters, shredding her remaining would be attackers to nothing as she spun her compartment around in circles.

Raven, however, was spending more time calmly floating her compartment around and dodging her assailants' attacks then actively attacking them herself. "Remain calm," she said to herself. "Just keep leading them on."

Right as she had them all joined up and swooping towards her, charging orbs of dark energy at the ready to be cast, she halted her compartment, maneuvered it so that its underside was facing them, and pressed a button. The metallic covering of the underside opened up, revealing what looked like a trio of glass circles, and let loose a trio of gigantic flashes of light. Raven had activated the emergency spotlights.

The Umbrosians shrieked in agony as they felt the burning sensation of the impossibly bright light on the darkness of their skin. Several of them hurriedly turned around and tried to flee while the spotlights were busy evaporating their comrades, only to promptly be destroyed themselves once their compatriots fully evaporated and left them with no defense. Once the entirety of the four outside fighter squadrons were thus destroyed, Raven shut off the spotlights and maneuvered her compartment back into proper flying position, ready to focus on the three ships that had now slowly managed to get her back in their sights.

Robin and Beast Boy had made it halfway to the Royal Tamaranean starship when they noticed the six ships and eight outside fighter squadrons heading after them.

"Great," said Beast Boy. "Now what?"

Robin took one quick look at their pursuers, then back at the larger force, and then at Beast Boy. "Beast Boy," he said. He pointed at the smaller group pursuing them. "Do you think you can handle them?"

Beast Boy glanced in the direction Robin was pointing. "Maybe?"

"Well that better mean yes," said Robin. He gunned the thrusters of his compartment as he hurtled off towards the larger Tamaranean ship. "Keep them off of me so I can focus on saving the Tamaraneans."

"Robin wait, I'm not sure how I . . ."

But Robin was already too far away and had too much noise from his compartment's thrusters going off to hear the changeling. "Oh alright fine," Beast Boy grumbled. He directed a glare in the direction of the small group chasing him, and then at the one still attempting to chase after Robin.

The Boy Wonder hurtled to a close distance away from the Royal Starship, got two squadrons of outside fighters in his targeting computer's sights, and then opened fire. The attacking Umbrosians were promptly taken aback when yet more blaster fire came upon them. At least three outside fighting squadrons faded away under the onslaught before the leader diverted its attention from its own assault on the ship once more. Upon sight of the lone compartment opening fire directly at its forces on the larger ship, its red eyes narrowed. Then it noticed the small group pursuing the compartment, and it shrugged in dismissal before returning its attention to its own task.

Beast Boy was wracking his brain trying to figure out how to handle both the group pursuing him and the group pursuing Robin. "Beast Boy take the controls," Beast Boy grumbled as he slowly swooped around with his original pursuers still chasing him and keeping his focus on Robin's pursuers at the same time. "Does anyone ask if I know how?" He took a quick look at the two groups once more. "Well, I suppose I can at least start by actually firing at the ones on Robin's butt."

Naturally, the Umbrosians pursuing Robin were both surprised and annoyed when they suddenly came under fire from a completely separate enemy. They hissed, and raised their hands to charge up attacks. Beast Boy was quick to keep firing at them upon sight of this. Two of the squadrons were destroyed entirely before the other two squadrons paused their attack charging to swoop out of range.

Beast Boy's eyes narrowed at the sight of the two squadrons swooping away from his blaster fire. Then he heard the sound of hissing behind him, and he turned his compartment around and started firing at his own pursuers.

This time, he only managed to completely annihilate one of the outside fighter squadrons before the rest flew out of range. He snarled at the sight of this. "You just have to make things hard, don't you?" Then he heard blaster fire coming from behind him, and he turned his head in time to see that the group pursuing Robin had once again returned its attention to the Boy Wonder. He turned around and zoomed back in that group's direction. "Hey!" he yelled. "I'm not done with you yet!"

Robin kept firing at the larger force attacking Galfore's ship. This time, he managed to eliminate 10 squadrons of outside fighters before he finally attracted their attention once more. This time, the apparent leader was both surprised and outraged when he saw both how many of his forces had just been slaughtered by this one fighter.

With a snarl, he pointed his right arm towards Robin's compartment and howled a command in his native language. In an instant, half the outside fighters attached to the Tamaranean ship detached and flew towards the Boy Wonder.

Acting remarkably calmly considering the circumstances, Robin continued firing his blasters at the incoming attackers. Then, when he noticed he wasn't making nearly enough progress in taking them out, he switched his blasters from 'pistol' mode to 'machine gun' mode.

Once only a quarter remained of the group that was now heading towards him, the remaining Umbrosians in question hurriedly split off into various directions and artfully kept themselves dodging and safe from the blaster shots fired at them. In his annoyance, Robin completely failed to realize how much blaster power he was unintentionally wasting until he heard the low power beeping start to go off. His masked eyes widened as he saw that the blaster capacity in his compartment was now down to 1%.

He stopped firing, and retracted his blasters. Right now, he really needed to allow them time to recharge.

He looked up in time to see that the remaining Umbrosians coming after him had regrouped and were now swooping straight towards him. Robin kept his compartment hovering still as the Umbrosians continued towards him. Then, when the incoming attackers were about 5 minutes away from ramming into him, he caused his compartment's shields to activate and then gunned the thrusters, sending his compartment rocketing straight towards his attackers.

His T-ship compartment rammed into them, causing them all to crackle and fade from existence upon contact with the bright blue energy light of the force fields.

Once he brought his compartment to a stop and deactivated the force fields, Robin turned his head to look behind him, a smirk on his face before looking back in the direction of the Tamaranean ship, noticing how the Tamaraneans were now actively fighting back themselves. It turned out, the force that Robin had just taken out had consisted of the Umbrosians that were initially preventing the Tamaraneans from activating their ship's own blasters and allowing warriors to depart from the ship to take part in combat outside the ship themselves.

"They should be able to handle themselves for a good long while now." He looked over in Beast Boy's direction and saw how he was currently handling himself quite admirably, but still not to the point that assistance wouldn't be appreciated. "I'd best see if I can help Beast Boy out a bit."

Meanwhile, Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven were fighting furiously against the Umbrosian ships that had been sent after them. Cyborg, having finally managed to take out the last of the Umbrosian warrior squadrons beforehand, appeared to be having the most fun with the situation.

"Booyah!" he yelled as he opened fire at the three ships that had been assigned against him, his blaster fire set to 'cannon' mode.

The trio of ships attempting to assault Starfire's compartment hardly did any better. Starfire artfully flew her compartment helter-skelter as she successfully dodged the laser blasts of her assailants and simultaneously fired back with her own shots.

Raven, as it so happened, was doing quite well against the ships chasing her despite, once again, not having fired a single blast or deployed her shields once the whole encounter. "Remain calm. Stay focused."

After a while, her focus paid off. She came to a stop right as all three of the Umbrosian ships had gathered right in front of her. She stopped her compartment and lifted her hands, eyes now glowing with her distinctive black energy. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

In a flash, each of the ships was suddenly struck with what looked like slash marks of black energy before being explosively sliced in half.

Robin and Beast Boy were hard at work fighting together against the six ships and remaining outside warriors that had been assigned to go after them. "Die! Die! Die!" Beast Boy yelled as he fired his blasters indiscriminately at the outside fighters. Within minutes, all but one of the squadron's facing against Beast Boy had been killed off by the changeling's blasters. Immediately after this, however, the trio of ships assigned against Beast Boy let off a salvo of blaster fire at him, forcing him to hurriedly switch onto the defensive.

Robin, on the other hand, had kept himself on the defensive for virtually the entire time he'd joined up with Beast Boy, due to how his blasters were still recharging. After a while, he found himself surrounded. Robin looked around him, and then smirked as he came up with an idea. Right as the ships started firing their blasts at him, he hurriedly caused his compartment to drop downwards. Thus, two of the ships, plus the two attack squadrons, were promptly vanquished as the Boy Wonder's swift dodge caused them to unwittingly shoot mercilessly at each other. However, one of the ships remained unharmed from Robin's dodging gambit, and it immediately flew after him once more.

Robin had spent a full three minutes keeping himself from getting blasted by the remaining ship on his tail before it suddenly exploded after getting hit seemingly by friendly fire. Robin looked in the direction that the blasts had come from just in time to see none other than Beast Boy.

Robin shook his head in bemusement. He accessed Beast Boy's commlink. "Thanks Beast Boy."

"Friends," said Starfire's voice. "Are you the alright?"

Beast Boy and Robin tapped into their commlinks. "We're good," said Robin.

"What he said," said Beast Boy.

"Oh joy," said Raven.

"Good to hear from you to Rae."

"It's Raven."

"While I love hearing byplay just as much as any other dude," said Cyborg's voice on the commlinks, "let's save the flirting between anyone not named Robin or Starfire for when we're not in imminent danger."

"We're not flirting!" Beast Boy and Raven yelled.

"Enough," said the Boy Wonder. "Everyone taken care of their attackers?"

His four subordinates instantly indicated 'yes'.

"Good," said Robin. "Now let's check on Galfore and the other Tamaraneans."

As it turned out, things seemed to now be going well for those on board the Royal Tamaranean starship. Much to the Titans surprise, all the remaining ships and outside warriors appeared to be retreating en masse from the giant ship.

"Did we win?" Beast Boy asked.

"It certainly looks like it," said Cyborg.

Robin, however, narrowed his eyes at the sight of the seemingly retreating Umbrosians. He had an eerie feeling that this was looking a little too good to be true.

The retreating forces came to a stop, and then turned around to face the direction of the large starship. A small vortex of what appeared to be lightning in space appeared behind them, gradually expanding until it formed an entire giant portal of lightning and darkness. One of the Umbrosian soldiers turned around, gave a wave, and swooped through the portal, the rest of the warriors and ships following close behind.

Then the shock doubled when first a pair of giant glowing red lights appeared within the vortex, and then an entire gigantic Umbrosian ship slowly emerged from it. The ship was easily twice the size of the Tamaranean starship, dwarfing it considerably. Extending from the sides of it were a pair of wing-like extensions that resembled the wings of a manta ray.

The worst aspect, however, soon revealed itself when the 'head' of the ship split in two in the style of an opening mouth, revealing a large metallic hole that suddenly started to glow and crackle with an ominous red light directed straight towards the Tamaranean Royal starship. The sight of this was enough to cause the Titans to rapidly start sweating with nerves.

"Oh Hell," said Cyborg.

. . . . .

Galfore, meanwhile, had very similar thoughts running through his head. "Hard to port!" he bellowed. "Turn this ship around and get it moved as far out of the way as you can! A direct hit by that thing could easily kill us all!"

"Yes your Excellency," said the two Tamaraneans responsible for steering, hurriedly working to get the ship turned around and out of range.

Two minutes later, right as the Tamaranean ship had gotten itself halfway out of the enemy line of fire, the Umbrosian ship fired its blast. The resulting beam of red energy plowed into the middle of the Tamaranean ship's right side, leaving a gaping smoking hole in the area of impact. The royal starship was also briefly sent spinning off course before managing to come to a stop directly facing the direction of the T-ship compartments.

Starfire hurriedly accessed her communicator's link to the starship. "K'norfka," she said. "Are you alright?"

"We're alright," said Galfore. "For now."

Then the conversation was halted as a result of the giant Umbrosian ship starting to fire a salvo of comparatively smaller lasers from its 'eyes' towards the Tamaranean ship.

Galfore whispered a curse under his breath, and turned his head to face the two crew members he'd earlier addressed. "How far are we from the Vega system?"

"We're right at the border," said one of the pilots.

"There's a planet not too far that way," said the other.

Galfore and the other Tamaraneans all looked in the direction the one pilot had pointed, and saw none other than a green, gray, and somewhat ugly looking planet not too far away from them that, despite its appearance, now seemed a very welcome presence in their sight.

Galfore leaned forward in his seat, pointing in the planet's direction. "Engage the thrusters! We're going to that planet!"

"Your excellency," said the captain of the guard. "Are you sure? We don't know for certain what planet that is. It could be dangerous."

"That's a risk we're just going to have to take," said Galfore. "Dangerous or not, we'll last much longer down there then we will against that monstrosity firing at us. Of that, I am certain."

As if to emphasize Galfore's point, three laser blasts from the Umbrosian ship struck the Tamaranean ship's tail.

The captain promptly turned to face the two pilots. "You heard his excellency, set a course straight for that planet."

"Yes sir," said the pilots in unison, and within seconds, the Tamaranean ship began making its way over to the planet.

Galfore swiftly resumed his transmission with Starfire. "Starfire, are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Do you see that planet I'm currently heading towards?"

There was a brief pause. "Yes."

"Good. Meet us there, and bring your friends with you."

"I will."

. . . . .

Starfire ended her transmission with Galfore. "Friends," she said. "Galfore and the rest of my people are heading towards a nearby planet. He has requested we go there with them."

"Not gonna argue there," said Robin. "Titans, regroup!"

The Titans rejoined their compartments back together, activating their shields at the same time. With the T-ship protected by its now united singular force field, the Titans flew off in the direction that the Tamaranean ship was heading, simultaneously dodging laser fire from the Umbrosian ship as much as they could and letting the shield handle whatever blasts they weren't able to dodge.

. . . . .

Right as the T-ship and the Tamaranean royal starship were seconds away from adequate distance to initiate landing procedures, the captain of the vast Umbrosian ship hovered his hand over the button that would initiate charging the larger cannon for a 2nd blast.

Then he gave the nearby planet a side glance, his eyes narrowing as he took a closer look at it, and then his eyes brightened as if he were smiling. He lowered his hand. "That's enough," he warbled to his subordinates. "Let us withdraw."

"Sir?" asked one of the pilots. "You are certain of this?"

"Yes."

"But sir," said another pilot. "We're under orders to eliminate them. . ."

"Which the inhabitants of that planet they're heading towards should have no trouble doing for us."

The captain nodded his head. "We've done enough. The Titans will not leave that planet unless the Tamaraneans on board the other ship do so as well. Of that, the Tamaranean exile was quite insistent, and with the damage we've already dealt, it should take some time for sufficient repairs to be made. That alone will be more than enough time for that planet to destroy them."

He looked at the pilots. "Deactivate the blasters and set a course back to home base, and activate the communications array. It is of the utmost importance that I file a report of this news to the council and the Tamaranean exile."

"Yes sir," said the thirteen pilots in unison.

And just like that, a new chapter done! Hope you all enjoyed it and leave plenty of feedback (remember, exact minimum of two reviews is required before the next completed and beta-approved chapter can be posted). I especially hope you got a kick out of finally seeing the Umbrosians in action. And all that in mind, just what planet have the Titans and Tamaraneans chosen to land on? All good questions! Again, I hope you've enjoyed this new chapter and leave a respectable amount of feedback!

Coming up Next: The Titans and Tamaraneans have successfully landed on the conveniently located Vega system border planet and are now safe from the Umbrosians. Question is, is this planet they've landed on any safer for them? And just who are the inhabitants of this planet that the Umbrosians seemed to confident would be more than capable of eliminating the Titans and Tamaraneans for them? Find out next time!